It is hard for me to sit quiet and hear person’s I adore talk about the gospel and salvation, and they put meaning behind these ideas/words when ultimately they reject these meanings. One of the [many] reasons I reject TULIP [theistic determinism] is because IT rejects the sufficiency of the living Word of God (the Gospel), as well as Calvary (the lynchpin to the Gospel).
The Gospel of God vs. The Gospel of Calvinism (Ronnie Rogers)
…. Calvinists may respond that they believe the gospel is the “power of God to everyone who believes.” By which they seem to mean, when you believe, you will experience the power of God, and that is true for everyone who believes. But, hidden in this explanation is that while this is trivially true, it is not an actualizable truth as it stands (that the listener can benefit from or by simple faith) without UE, IG, and SR, so one can and will believe, all of which is reserved for the elect and withheld from the non-elect.
As it stands in Scripture, the gospel is portrayed and understood by those who hear it to be sufficiently imbued by God’s power to save the most wretched of sinners if they only believe. Therefore, I beseech Calvinists to be more forthcoming in their gospel encounters with the lost about the other Calvinist requirements, by telling the listener what else must happen before they can believe and experience the power of the gospel—that is, the whole nature of the gospel according to Calvinism. Please fully explain to those who reject the gospel why they did so according to Calvinism. Do not let them leave with a false notion that it was because they rejected the gospel when they should have, and could have, accepted it. It was not just an act of the grace-enabled will, as they think and Scripture testifies.
The biblical gospel is simple and clear (John 3:16; 1 Cor 15:1–4). Anyone can believe and be saved by simply believing this revelation—the gospel—in which resides the power of God almighty to overcome any and all obstacles to salvation by faith. Calvinists should be equally clear about their quite different full understanding of the gospel of Christ. As Calvinists, please tell those whom you evangelize that belief in the gospel is the effect of God’s eternal and unconditional election, the internal efficacious call of God reserved for only the elect, and the renewing pre-faith work of God (regeneration or some form of renewal) of some, rather than what it is in Scripture and the minds of most, if not all, that hear the good news; that believing the gospel is the activating event that results in salvation and all that entails. Contrary to the biblical simple gospel, Calvinism’s gospel should only be shared in a way that listeners understand the gospel is not good news for everyone, and its real good news is that if you accept it, you can know you are one of the elect.
Therefore, according to Calvinism, hearing and believing in the gospel is not the sufficient call to move sinners from being a lost hell-bound sinner to being a child of God by faith. That requires the person to be elected in eternity past, a recipient of the internal efficacious call, and selectively regenerated by God. All of that empowers one to respond positively to the external call of the gospel, without which the gospel is incapable of doing anything except confirming the irreversible state of the damned.
Any veneer of Calvinism that even suggests, or leaves the listener thinking they have a choice to believe or not believe the gospel, is deception, because only after those monergistic renewal works can one truly believe the gospel unto salvation. Moreover, believing the gospel is not the turning point in a person’s eternal destination; it is actually the conduit that brings the truth to a person whose turning point in their life was being unconditionally elected in eternity past, from which believing the gospel is a result. Calvinism undermines the intelligibility of God so that the message derived from a normal reading of Scripture in light of Calvinism makes God appear indecipherable unless one possesses the Calvinist code. …..
Is God’s Word Enough?
Billy Wendeln, of the Bible Brodown is back to talk about God’s witness of Himself to the world and what the Bible teaches us about the sufficiency of the Divine revelation made known to all people.
FREE THINKING MINISTRIES discussed if “Calvinism a Different Gospel?“, to which they discussed the lowering of God’s
… Notable Calvinist scholar, Matthew J. Hart, is clear: “Calvinists . . . are theological determinists. They hold that God causes every contingent event, either directly . . . or indirectly.” Since human thoughts and states of belief are contingent events, this means that God, according to Calvinistic determinism, causes each and every thought and belief, including all of our false and evil beliefs. In his work titled The Providence of God, Paul Helm — who many consider to be the world’s leading Calvinist philosopher — explains where our thoughts come from according to his Calvinistic view:
- “Not only is every atom and molecule, every thought and desire, kept in being by God, but every twist and turn of each of these is under the direct control of God. He has not, as far as we know, delegated that control to anyone else.”
If these scholars are correct in their assessment of Calvinism (that Calvinism entails exhaustive determinism), then I contend that Calvinism — the view that God determines all things about humanity — promotes the following incorrect views:
1- A low view of God.
As I’ve explained elsewhere, if exhaustive divine determinism is true, then God is a deity of deception and an untrustworthy source of theological beliefs.
2- A low view of God’s word.
Based on the transfer of trust principle, if God is an untrustworthy source of theological beliefs, then why should we trust a book authored by a deity of deception that is full of theological statements you are supposed to believe? If God is untrustworthy, so is a book he inspired. Thus, appealing to Bible verses or to the original Greek does nothing to escape this presupposed false and low view of God and His word.
3- A low view of man.
Man does not have the ability to reason free from antecedent conditions which are sufficient to necessitate all of his thoughts and beliefs. Man is nothing but a caused cause or a passive cog (a puppet) who is always tethered to prior deterministic forces.
Thus, on this view, man does not have the active power to infer better beliefs in a deliberative circumstance. He is merely a passive cog who is determined (by something or someone else) to believe truth or to believe falsities.
4- A low view of sin.
The definition of sin is to “miss the mark.” However, there is no missing the mark if God determines all things about humanity. Everyone always hits the mark perfectly — exactly as God determined.
5- A low view of the gospel.
This, in my opinion, is the deal-breaker. Calvinism is a low view of the gospel. The gospel literally means “the good news.” Here’s how Christianity has traditionally understood this “good news” with the help of the G.O.S.P.E.L. acronym:
G – God–a perfect being–created all people to be in an eternal loving relationship with Him (that is the objective purpose of life – this is why humanity exist).(Psalm 100:3)
O – Our sins (emphasis on “our”) infect us and separate us from God (like oil and water, necessary perfection and infection do not mix). (Romans 3:23)
S – Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (there’s nothing we as infected people can do about it – we need a miracle). (Isaiah 64:6)
P – Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again (this is that miracle – Jesus paid it all). (Romans 5:8)
E – Everyone who freely trusts in Christ alone – and has not rejected His offer of love and grace – has eternal life (John 3:16).
L – Life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever (to infinity . . . and beyond). (John 10:28)
But Calvinism literally preaches a different gospel. Consider Paul’s words in Galatians 1: 6-8:
- “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”
Here’s the Calvinist’s different G.O.S.P.E.L.*:
G* – God created a few people to be with him. Most people were created for the specific purpose of eternal suffering in Hell.
Right off the bat, we see that this is not the Gospel message that has been preached in Scripture or through the history of the Christian Church. At the least, it’s a radically different message than what most Christians have had in mind over the past 2,000 years when sharing the good news.
It gets worse . . .
O* – Our separation from God is caused and determined by God.
Let that sink in!
S* – Sins are illusory.
As noted above, no one ever misses the mark (the definition of sin), but everyone does exactly what God determines us to do. Every arrow hits the bulls eye.
P* – Paying the price for what God caused and determined all people to do, Jesus died and rose again.
At least Calvinists and non-Calvinist Christians all affirm the historical resurrection (but so do Mormons).
E* – Everyone who God determines to go to heaven goes to heaven; everyone else (the majority of humanity) is determined to suffer in the fires of hell.
Unless, of course, the Calvinist affirms universalism and argue that allpeople are given irresistible grace and determined to go to heaven. Calvinists can also affirm annihilationism and contend that eternal separation from God is still determined by God (so the problem still remains), but there is no eternal conscious suffering. Both views are typically rejected by most Calvinists.
L* – Life in hell lasts forever.
Does this sound like “good news”? No, in fact, it’s horrible news to the vast majority of humanity. Calvinism is not the message of Christianity. It is a distorted understanding of the gospel that ought to be rejected by Christ followers. ….
Calvinism: A Different Gospel
If Calvinists, Molinists, and Arminians are all Christians, why does Tim Stratton spend so much time arguing about free will, divine providence, and salvation? The answer might make some angry or uncomfortable. But if we are committed to truth, we should have an open dialogue and respectful conversations. Stratton believes that Calvinism contains within itself several problems that must be addressed. He agues that Calvinism presents us with a low view of God, a low view of God’s word, and a low view of the Gospel! (To name a few.) Because of this and other reasons, it is reasonable to conclude that Calvinism presents a different Gospel, which we ought to vehemently reject.